Nervos Network (CKB)
Basics * Launched at the start of 2018. Mainnet was launched in 11-2019. * From CMC (22-1-2020): "The Nervos Network describes itself as an open-source public blockchain ecosystem and collection of protocols. The Nervos CKB (Common Knowledge Base) is the layer 1, proof of work public blockchain protocol of the Nervos Network. It reportedly allows any crypto-asset to be stored with the security, immutability and permissionless nature of Bitcoin while enabling smart contracts and layer 2 scaling. It aims to capture the total network value through its "store of value" crypto-economic design and native token, the CKByte." Token * Nervos supports a native utility token, the CKByte. CKByte is used for resource management and miner incentivization and entitles the holder to an allocation of state storage space on the CKB blockchain. * From Messari (22-1-2020): "A total of 33.6 billion CK Byte were issued at launch and allocated as follows: * 25% of the Genesis tokens burned (non-circulating) in the Genesis block and never enter the circulating supply. * 21.5% allocated to Public Sale investors * 14% allocated to Private Sale investors and vesting over two years, with two-third released upon mainnet * 15% allocated to the Team and vesting over four years, with one-third upon mainnet * 17% was allocated to an Ecosystem Fund * 5% was reserved for Strategic Founding Partners * 2% was reserved for the Foundation * 0.5% was allocated to Testnet Incentives Founders & Project: 40.5% Investors: 34% AirDrops & Rewards: 25.5%" * Seed round of 7-2018 brought $28M an their ICO of 10-2019 raised 72M Tech * Has three papers: Positioning Paper, Crypto-economic Paper and Nervos CKB whitepaper * From Messari (22-1-2020): "CKB's PoW algorithm, NC-Max, can adjust mining difficulty in response to network conditions, increasing throughput when the network of nodes is well-connected and slowing it when the block orphan rate passes a certain threshold. ''Block'''' time of 10 seconds"'' * From DeFi Weekly #57 (7-2-2020): "For those of you that aren't up to scratch, Nervos basically makes their native token the right to store data on the base chain rather than pay for computation. Each "storage cell" can also store custom logic/scripts that can be used to deploy contracts, libraries etc. It uses a UTXO model to combine the inputs of cells with their outputs. The idea around it is that eventually the token becomes a store of value as storage becomes scarce which incentivises a good value capture mechanism but also allows developers to build more storage efficient layer 2 solutions. One added benefit of the way they've designed their system is that you can deploy custom hashing/signing algos to sign transactions with which in theory would make it easier to support other encryption schemes for things such as SNARKs and STARKs without requiring an EIP style base layer change. Their docs have good and clear explanations about how the whole system works without too much jargon and seems relatively legit. You can read more here." He then goes on to mention his critiques, which can be read below. DAO * From their website (22-1-2020): "The Nervos DAO is an inflation shelter from secondary issuance used to manage state storage and provide sustainable incentives for miners. Store of Value users can lock their tokens in the Nervos DAO and receive a proportional share of this inflation. In this way your tokens are never diluted beyond a fixed cap." Critiques * From DeFi Weekly #57 (7-2-2020): "Okay so now that I've got that out of the way ''(the good parts can be read above under 'Tech'), why am I still not so excited about Nervos? Well for starters, they don't have any way for 3rd party developers to write "smart-contracts" from what the docs show. If you were to classify the progress a layer 1 has made in terms of developer utilities it looks a little something like this:'' # You can deploy custom functionality but need very high insider context and a lot of help from the dev team # There's docs you can read and maybe be able to deploy everything magically goes right and there's no quirks with the API (which there almost is because no dev internally will test their own stuff smh) # Not only are there docs, but many 3rd party sources will teach you how to do the basics (deploy a token), read data off-chain etc. # There's multiple implementations for each component in the stack: multiple node client implementations, multiple JS libraries to interact on-chain, multiple wallet providers # Many developers have built useful applications with developer access to allow developers to create composable applications that magically work together with access to significant liquidity (able to sell at least $100k worth of native currency for USD with less than 0.25% slippage) So where is Nervos on this scale? Level 1. It's basically where Ethereum was right when it launched 4 or so years ago (maybe even less since you could deploy contracts yourself when Ethereum launched). Furthermore, the whole thesis of optimising for layer 2 scaling is a bit weird to focus on when there's literally no activity apart from sending CKB on-chain at the moment. It's like claiming you have the usage of Ethereum and offering a solution to it except for the fact you have literally no-one using your chain. If there's one piece of advice I'd give layer 1 chains, identify a real use case which can attract a certain class of user orientated application and optimise for that - not technical things your chain can do." Team, investors, partners Team Investors * From Messari (22-1-2020): Sequoia Capital, Huobi Capital, Kindred Ventures, Dragonfly Capital Category:Coins/Tokens